Noooooo :-(

I am totally speechless now..... I did suspect it but now I know that I live in the eternal Tundra!
It looks like Christmas time but, alas, it is the 22nd of April !
I am so tired of snow. Actually that wouldn't even be so bad, I could live with it - not like it, but okay. However, there is no sun! On Saturday it was a sunny day but that was the first and so far only one thus far in the last week or two .....  I need sun and warmth........

How was your Easter Celebration?

We had a good time celebrating the risen Christ. We spend the day together and it was so nice. I made a gluten free brioche for breakfast and it turned out really good. We went to the third service at church. It was pretty strange and also very sad to think that we were listening to John Piper's last sermon as Lead Pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church. It was a good sermon, as usual. God really gave him the gift of preaching and I am very thankful that I was privileged to sit under Pastor Piper's teaching for the last three years. I think God still has many plans for his life and I think Pastor John will enjoy this next phase of his life.

We then came to home to a roast, which I had in a dutch oven cooking while we were at church. It smelled so good when we walked in the door. We had our pork roast with red cabbage and dumplings (Kloesse). Later we had some gluten free cupcakes and easter candy. We watched "Matthew" and had a really relaxing and good time together. The only little not so good part was that Jeremy lost a part of the filling in his tooth while chewing chewing gum and had a toothache. I gave him four ibuprofen and he was okay. We ended up going to the dentist this morning and he pulled the tooth. It was a "baby tooth". So now he is missing three teeth and the tooth fairy is going broke ;-)

The Easter Bunny in the nest :)

Not sure what we were thinking... why did we color that
 many eggs????

Food is on the table, it was so good, with enough
left overs for the next day.....

Close up of the Easter Bunny :D

A winner :)

It has been quiet on this blog for a while. Once again I am amazed at how fast time passes by...  I missed writing our journey down and am glad that life is at a little slower pace now.  We have had a busy season, which was also fun. A lot of things happened and I will try to put them all in one blog post, which will hopefully not be too long :)
So, grab your latte or tea or other beverage of choice, kick back and relax - it's the weekend :D

We started off with a Karate Tournament. Jeremy just started Karate in January and this was his first tournament. I told him that maybe he shouldn't expect too much, because he didn't have much time to learn and train. Though it was great to get to know the process and see what's going on, so that he would be better prepared for the next time. I thought it would be good to get him ready - just in case he didn't win anything, which in my mind was clear that it wouldn't happen because he just started with this. Well, my 'little' son proved me all wrong. He didn't just get trophy, he brought two home! One was for participation in the gold belt basics. The other was for first place in team form! Yeah! He and his partner did really good - especially since both of them are pretty new to Karate. This was awesome for the boys and Jeremy was on a high all day long. Of course the high energy one could easily feel at tournament had something to do with that as well.

One happy boy :)

On the heels of the tournament followed the yearly Pinewood Derby Race with the Cub Scouts. The past four years Jeremy tried really hard to win the race but never did. He wasn't sure that would want to enter this year, but wanted to give it another try. Well, good that he did, because his car came in first place! He was just ecstatic !  Now he and the other boys who won go on to race at the next level. Even if he doesn't win there, that is okay, he had a blast so far :)

my little guy with his winning car 'Sharp Cheddar"

After all of this excitement, we still had to finish the project for the geography bee at our co-op. Jeremy chose to make a display board about Berlin - Germany. That was a bit difficult to fit in, because it didn't have much to do with our school. Since we are studying about the ancient civilizations, we didn't quite fit it. Though we did learn that Germany existed already during ancient Roman times, though it was called Germania. So I guess it did fit into our history - somewhat at least ;-)

So it was a very eventful and successful few weeks for us, especially for Jeremy. It was a great time, but I was glad to have some normalcy back :)

Justice Department: Home Schooling not a 'Right'

Really? So what does that mean for homeschoolers here in the US????

Since this hits close to home - so to speak, I thought I pass this on. I think if enough people know about this, we can then stand together to keep the right to homeschool here in the US. It is the land of the free and should remain the land of the free!

The U.S. Justice Department says home-schooling is not a fundamental right.

That was the argument the Obama administration made in federal court against an evangelical Christian family from Germany seeking asylum in the United States.

Germany broadly forbids home-schooling. So the Romeike family was forced to flee the country or risk losing their five children to the German government, which was trying to force them to put their children in public schools.

The Homeschool Legal Defense Association is working on the Romeike family's behalf.

Michael Farris, founder and chairman of HSLDA, wrote about Germany's home-school ban in his blog saying, "It is thought control. It is belief control. It is totalitarianism dressed up in politically correct lingo."

For more on this important case and its potential impact on home-schooling in the United States, CBN News spoke with Michael Donnelly, director of International Relations for HSLDA.

The Romeikes claim their religious freedoms are being violated.

But U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has filed against the Romeike family in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He said that asylum should not be granted to home-schoolers since home-schooling is not protected under religious freedom.

But Farris wrote, "In most asylum cases, there is some guesswork necessary to figure out the government's true motive -- but not in this case."

"The Supreme Court of Germany declared that the purpose of the German ban on home-schooling was to 'counteract the development of religious and philosophically motivated parallel societies,'" Farris explained.

Source:
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2013/February/Justice-Department-Home-Schooling-not-a-Right/

Merry Christmas to everyone!

We had a wonderful Christmas celebration. Last night we went to church for Christmas Eve. That was very nice. It had been too long since we were last at church on Christmas Eve. It made everything just so much more festive and thoughtful.
Today we talked to my parents in Germany for a long time. My sister is visiting them from Portugal and we skyped with her, too. It was so much fun to connect with them and be able to at least see them and talk as long as you like. I remember when I first moved to the US in 1985 all I had was the phone. Believe you me, it was EXPENSIVE! to call Germany, so I tried not to talk too long. Of course that made the distance seem so much more. Now, thanks to computers and Skype, we can talk and see each other as long and as often as we like and it doesn't cost anything. I just love it!
Then the kids played "Mexican Train" while I made our Christmas dinner. I really wanted to make goose, but at a price of $ 70 I decided against it. So we had marinated beef, with potato dumplings and red cabbage ( Sauerbraten mit Kloessen und Rotkohl). It was really delicious. For desert I had planned gluten free cheesecake, but since I talked to my parents for a really long time, I didn't have time for the cheesecake. So we will have Jesus' birthday cake tomorrow :)
After that the girls played with their new iPad for a while and then we snuggled onto the couch with gluten free cookies and watched 631 of 1060 pictures my parents had send me on a DVD. The kids were surprised that I was once a kid ;-)  Well, not really surprised but you just don't think of your parents as having been a baby once upon a time. So we had a few laughs of how Opa used to look before him and Oma were even married or when long sideburns were all the fashion.  We looked at baby pictures of me and pictures of me and my sister in the 70's, boy the style during that time was a serious fail :D
It was a good celebration of the birth of Christ. Thank you Jesus for everything you have done and still do for us. I know that His birthday is not in December, but I don't really care, because no one knows exactly when He was born. I am just more than happy and thankful that He was born and that is what we celebrate.

This is a German tradition "Bunte Teller"
everone gets a plate with Christmas
Candy. Actually there also should be
some nuts and oranges on there but
nobody wants that :-)

In the process of setting the table 

Christmas dinner is served :D

Nina is having a deep conversation with
"Siri"  ;-)

Midnight sledding.....

Well, actually it wasn't midnight, it was more like 9:30pm :)  Jamie had a friend over and all four of them went sledding. It was pretty cold and the snow had turned into mostly ice, I guess that thought was enticing for them. Luckily Nina has her license and I didn't have go out into the cold, though they used my van instead of Nina's car. To my dismay they put the wet sleds on the leather seats.......
It wasn't far from the house only about 5 min by car and they all had their phones and about 45 min later they were back and enjoying cups of hot chocolate with marshmallows. I have a good idea of how fast time goes by and so I enjoy every minute (most of the time) with the kids. The advise from a good friend was to do my best to live in the moment, thank you P. those are wise words. So now I try to live in the moment and don't get too frazzled. I try to remember to take time to listen to what they say after I ask them how they are. I will do my best to put my work down for moment to given them a hug or a smile while looking into their eyes. All too soon all of this will be a memory and they are living their own lives with their own children....

Nina and A.

looks like they are having fun

unfortunately we don't have a picture with Jamie
because she was behind the camera

doesn't the little guy look exhausted ?

I would have thought that it would work better if
 the smaller one sits on the lap of the bigger person?

 our crooked little Christmas tree 

I just had to show those totally adorable little snowmen.
Friends gave the to us last year for Christmas, thank you again
P. family!

Christmas decoration - done :)

The day after Thanksgiving was met with great excitement by my lovely daughters. Why? Well, they could get all the Christmas decoration out and have fun.
I enjoyed taking pictures and having some tea while the girls enjoyed themselves and decorated the house. Jamie put up all the lights on the windows, the Christmas tree and the garland in the kitchen. Nina decorated the rest. It looks beautiful and all the little light chains bathe the rooms in a beautiful, cozy, warm light. We enjoy sitting here and just taking in this wonderful atmosphere.

Jamie untangling the lights for the Christmas tree

draping the lights around the tree

the garland in the kitchen on one side

the other side

done :)

Isn't it beautiful?

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Black Friday and I am at home, I have no desire to leave the house today. The kids are excited because today is the day we decorate for Christmas! We are almost done and I am taking a break to write this blog post. I hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving! We had a nice Thanksgiving. It was  our first Thanksgiving sitting at our really nice and new dinette set :) The food turned out really well. The turkey was great, I seasoned it and added some fresh rosemary and sage and then closed the bag and put the bird in the oven. We had potato dumplings, carrots with peas in a sour cream sauce with parsley, sweet corn, stuffing, coleslaw and a vegetarian turkey.  Jamie was happy that I had a vegetarian option for her :) For dessert we had mango jello with real whip cream. Though this is not the typical american meal for Thanksgiving, we really enjoyed and were very stuffed afterwards. We talked about being thankful for the many blessings we have in our lives and how blessed we are to even live in a part of the world where we have an abundance in everything. Even if we are 'poor', in comparison to the majority of the world we are still rich....
It was wonderful to be together and have time to talk and enjoy each others company. Somehow there seems to be so little time for that in everyday life. I wish we could change that.
Later we had some homemade pumpkin cheesecake, that with some coffee was delicious!
We watched the movie "Amish Grace" and talked about that for a long time. We had a good discussion about the amish and their faith and our faith. We concluded that we would not want to live like the amish, but we can certainly glean from them. Their lives a kept purposefully simple and maybe we should try to simplify a little bit. We talked a long time about forgiveness and how I realized last year, when I saw "Amish Grace" the first time, that forgiveness is not something you do once and then are done. You may have to do it over and over again. For some things it is impossible to forgive without God's help. One quote in the movie was " Forgiveness has to come from an open heart, or it won't come at all."  It was a good day. Thank you, Lord for all your providence!

stuffed turkey with rosemary and sage, so good :)

the new dinette set 

our very cute but simple Thanksgiving table setting

A new dinette set :)

When we moved to Minnesota, we were blessed with a dinette set. Which was really, really wonderful, we could sit at a table and eat versus holding our plates in our laps. Now, four years later the table has worked well for us, but was showing signs of age. For about a year we kept tightening the legs but after a few days the screws came loose again. I guess you could say I have - well, had, - some screws loose ;-)   Since the table top was tile, it was pretty heavy. I think that added to the wear of the table.
The other day I decided to finally get a new dinette set. So the kids and I went to Ikea :)  We it really like going there. I could find a LOT of beautiful things there - sigh.  So, we all went and looked at tables and chairs and finally decided on a table and found chairs which are very similar to the ones we had in Germany. That made us feel very good, kind of like getting our stuff, which is still in storage in Germany. When we got home it was late but Jamie and I build the table and Jamie with a little help from Jeremy put all the chairs together. We had our first breakfast on our new dinette set :)
The only thing we had to do with the chairs was finish them. So I went to Walmart and bought some spray finish. Jamie Sanded the seat down, so it would be smooth after sanding and then treated all four chairs. It was pretty hard to wait for 24 hours before we could use the chairs, but we did it and now have a beautiful table and chairs! Thank you Jamie for all of your hard work!!!!!  I love you !!!!

my Jamie - thank you Love!

still sanding the chair...

the left chair is before, the right chair is after sanding and spraying.

The "little" guy starts the Birthday parties...

Jeremy is the first of my three lovely children to start with Birthdays, which we will be celebrating once a months from now and end the last one in January. I have often wished that the kid's Birthdays would have been in the summer and we could have lovely garden parties, decorated gazebos and lovely warm breeze accompanied by lots of children's laughter. Do you remember Meat Loaf's song " Two out of three ain't bad" ?  Well, in this case it is more like one out of four ain't bad :)  We have parties and we have decorations and we have lots of children's laughter. Because we live in a rather small apartment, we have to 'outsource' the parties. This year my 'little' guy wanted to go to a Go-Cart place, which proved to be waaayyy too expensive. So he thought about Paintball - really???? In my mind I could see injured and crying kids and very upset moms. That didn't sound like a lot of laughter. Luckily he finally settled on a trampoline park. We had a part of the trampoline park just for us for 30 min. That was really great and the kids enjoyed themselves very much and bounced all over the place. They threw the balls and played some sort of trampoline-dodgeball. They were jumping and falling and bouncing and running and laughing. After the thirty minutes we had to leave that private court and join the public, which was much more crowed, as there were about three or four more Birthday parties at the same time. The kids jumped and played for another sixty minutes after which they were very hot and exhausted. I think they were kind of happy that they got to sit down and have pizza, something to drink and cupcakes. Jeremy had a great time and enjoyed the company of his siblings and friends. After we got home and he had a shower he fell exhausted and happy into his bed. We had a fun day celebrating his 11-th Birthday. Though to me the past 11 years seemed more like 11 months  :)

Siblings :)

trampoline-dodgeball

yeah, well, the camera didn't do well with kids in mid-air

Everyone is enjoying pizza and something to drink

Happy Birthday, mein kleiner Frosch :D 

It's the small things ....

It has been a very busy week. I spend many, many hours planning, organizing and writing emails for our co-op. Mostly I like it and it is such a great reward to hear moms say that they really enjoy it and it honestly helps them in their homeschool journey. That makes all work worth it. Though I don't know if my kids would agree with that, since there were a few days when they had to have peanut butter sandwiches because I was in the middle of something and couldn't stop without completely loosing my train of thought. Well, we are almost done and ready to start. I just need to finish writing the contracts for the teachers, send emails to the parents, ..... well and few other things   :)    BUT, we did take a day and just went to IKEA. I really like going to that store, always have. When my son was little - we lived in Berlin at the time - my sister, her son, my son and myself used to meet at IKEA, shortly after they opened that day. We would bring our little guys to the play area and go upstairs to the cafeteria and have coffee and talk for a very long time. Since it was early in the day we could leave the little tykes often for about 1.5 or 2 hours in Smaland. That was a nice, inexpensive break for us :)    Now my little guy isn't so little any more and even though he'd like to go, they won't take him at the play area anymore. Though we all still like to go to IKEA. We went last week and had a fun time. I found a "Wäscheständer"! I am so happy about that! Coming from Germany, it is quite normal to hang up your washed laundry on a clothes drying rack since dryers are not as common as they are here in the States. We are living in an apartment where we have to pay for the wash machine and dryer, which makes doing laundry expensive. In order to cut some cost I tried to hang up my laundry to dry on the regular clothes drying racks. However, they are pretty small and a little wobbly and just don't last very well. So I often put the laundry in the dryer because I couldn't hang it up anywhere. Then we went to IKEA. There I found IT!  A beautiful, fairly sturdy Wäscheständer!  Yes, in Germany many are much more durable, however, this one is pretty good. I can now hang up to three loads of laundry and let it dry in the sunshine on the balcony. It smells sooo good. I suddenly like doing laundry again. Sometimes it is the little things in life that make a difference :)